


Whetstone

by Steals_Thyme (Liodain)



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: seasonofkink, F/M, OT3, Post-Karnak, Shaving, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4656459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liodain/pseuds/Steals_Thyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rorschach injures his hand and grudgingly enlists Laurie's help when he needs to shave. </p><p>Very grudgingly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whetstone

**Author's Note:**

> Set at some point after [Epilogue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4124667). Written for [Season of Kink](http://seasonofkink.dreamwidth.org/) 2015, Wild Card square.

The kid is more lucky than quick, but either way the boxcutter is sharp. Laurie watches as Rorschach drops and cuffs him, a steady ribbon of blood pattering into the oily gutter as he does. Dan is already there, reined-back concern in the cant of his body. He unfolds Rorschach's hand, and there's a slash of exposed skin, glove leather cleaved across his palm. Rorschach tolerates his attention for a moment, then pulls away.

*

There's probably no permanent damage, as far as she can tell, but she's no doctor. She gets him to bend all his fingers in turn, then all at once, and he only winces a little so that'll have to do. His palm is the easier wound to deal with; his glove absorbed most of the cutter's swipe. His finger is another matter—here's where the blade ended up, embedded along the crease of a fingerjoint where the wound will take forever to knit closed.

He grouses and fidgets while she bandages him, uses up practically all the surgical tape splinting his fingers so he can't be a stubborn ass about not using that hand. She's pretty sure the only reason he hasn't gotten up is because Dan's standing behind him, palms resting lightly on each shoulder.

*

Dan's out in the city somewhere. Rorschach's boiling up some water. For coffee, she thought, but he's taken the pan into the bathroom and is rattling around in the medicine cabinet.

"What are you looking for?" she asks him, hip against the open door, arms folded. She doesn't mean to accuse him of anything, but he's going to take it like that anyway. He likes to pick fights with her over nothing. Pulling her pigtails, Dan calls it, but a forty-something guy with the emotional maturity of a grade-schooler is not as cute as Dan thinks it is.

Rorschach doesn't respond straight away, edge of his injured hand resting on the rim of basin. He has a can of shaving foam in the other. "None of your business," he says, and empties a tumbler of miscellany into the basin: toothbrushes, an old comb. A safety razor.

Well, Laurie supposes his stubble has gotten a bit out of control lately, verging on an actual beard, patchy and thin as it might be. None of them have the time or energy to take care of themselves as well as they should, these days. Rorschach probably never did, or never had anyone around to tell him to.

He dispenses a blob of foam into the basin—over the toothbrushes, which will be a delightful surprise for Dan later—and scoops at it with his uninjured hand. "Stop staring," he says, face as blank as a butcher's block. He dabs the foam on his cheek and chin.

She just settles back and watches, because it might be entertaining to see him try to shave with his off-hand.

He holds the razor up to his face, hand tensed around it in a rawknuckle grip. He pauses, scowling deeply.

"Want a hand?" she asks.

"Funny." Steam curls from the surface of the hot water and condenses on his bare arms, fogs up the mirror and makes the room feel smaller than it is. He drops the razor back in the sink with a clatter.

"I'm serious," she says, because actually his pride and stubbornness are too frustrating to be amusing. She knows it's just the ruthless independence he's had to foster by necessity, but it's like he's always trying to prove a point. "Or maybe you'd prefer to have Dan help."

He turns his head just enough to eye her balefully.

"You know he's just desperate to touch you, all the time," she says, voice gone low and smoky. She's not unaware that she's playing dirty; this is very new for them, brimming with an intimacy none of them know how to deal with directly, and to be so stark about it is unfair. "He'd be all over this. His hands on your neck, face inches from yours—"

"Stop," Rorschach rasps. He hunches over the basin and sighs. "You've done this before?"

"Careful and thorough depilation? Oh, yeah, I'm a pro. You saw my old costume."

Rorschach makes a choking noise. Laurie turns him, bullies him against the basin to keep him from bolting, and she knows her grin is wolfish when she reaches past him to fish out the razor. He is warm, smells of tangy fresh sweat and damp air-dried clothes, earthy with mortar dust. She fills her palm with foam, goes to dab it on his face. He shies away, nothing more than impulse, but she raises her eyebrows at him. His mouth tightens, and when she tries again, he allows it.

The foam crackles as she coats his cheek in a thick lather; it's slippy between her fingertips, in contrast to Rorschach's gritty stubble. She can feel his jaw tensing as she smears it along his chin, and down his neck. The clean, soapy scent of it fills her nose.

"Okay." She brings the razor up to his cheek, rests it there a moment. His eye twitches. "Relax, I'm not gonna go _Un Chien Andalou_ on you."

"Laurel," he says, uninflected. He shudders.

"Hold still." She peels away a stripe of foam, sloughing off the bristles. His skin beneath is pink and freckled, smooth when she touches it, but not soft. She rinses off the razor and goes again; light, firm pressure, the keen drag of the blade and the cleared skin in its wake. It's satisfying, the way it feels, the crispness of it. 

She doesn't know if Rorschach feels the same satisfaction, or if it's because of her proximity, or if it's just the familiarity of a blade held to his skin that's been jarred out of context, but she can feel him whenever she leans in, hot against her thigh.

His breath comes slow and measured, but she knows better than to think that he's calm. He won't make eye contact; he's staring at the shower curtain, maybe because it feels just as reckless to close his eyes as to look at her.

The room is very quiet, humidity condensing on her skin. The only sound is their breathing and the scrape of the razor. When she brushes her thumb over the corner his mouth, he pulls a face to bring the skin taut, a gargoyle in bare feet. She works carefully to reveal more freckles, and a scar that's usually hidden among his stubble, then takes hold of his chin to shave the divot under his lower lip. 

"Okay. Neck, now," she tells him, fingers still at his chin. He tilts his face to the ceiling, and his Adam's apple bobs convulsively as he swallows over and over. She knows he's not worried, and smiles quietly as she glides the blade down the slope of his throat, trails her fingers down in its wake. It feels nice, this part of him that's not all jagged edges. For a moment, she lets herself believe they can work this thing out.

Then she nicks him, only because he can't seem to stop his throat working and not because she was gone for a moment. "Sorry," she murmurs, and thumbs away the bead of blood that diffuses into the foam. He says nothing, as though he didn't even notice. 

It'll do. She puts down the razor. "There, done."

He looks at her, finally, pupils wide in his muddy brown eyes. It's apparent he doesn't know whether to thank her, or if he even wants to.

"You're welcome," she says anyway, and dips a facecloth in the lukewarm pan of water. He grasps her wrist with his good hand, but loosely, lets her wipe away the scraps of foam that still cling to his rough-cast face. Shaving hasn't improved his looks any—just bared all its flaws: the absurdly high cheekbones and skewed nose; the deep crags around a mouth that's set too far down his face. A face only a mother could love, except she's learned that he didn't even have that.

She cups his jaw in her hands, and he's short enough that she barely has to raise her heels to drop a kiss on his forehead. He frowns at her when she traces his hairline, ducks his head to one side, away from her touch.

"Thank you," he says, finally, and she lets him go.

*


End file.
